Bingo

In the business classes I teach one of the subjects we cover consists of computer safety. This can be a lot of reading for the students. I created a bingo card that highlights certain key words and phrases. As I read through the information students cover their card. We play 5 in a row and the cover all. After we read through the information they have their vocabulary words for the unit. They then take the card and write definitions in the particular box.

GHS Raissing

Hi,
Just wanted you to know that the sessions at GHS did a lot to jog my memory and renew my passion for teaching. In my classroom, the focus may be slightly different from most regular ed. classes. I actually am teaching the students reading. We have used some of the ideas and need to experiment with more.
One thing that I do is to conference with students about their reading. I take notes when they read and answer comprehension questions. Each student has a folder in my notebook with anecdotal information about their literacy. It doesn't take long to see where the needs lie.
Making learning 'fun and interesting' is key. I liked the review games you all mentioned and used a template for jeopardy and Millionaire for whole class review. It worked. There are also a lot of United Streaming videos that correlate to SC and my functional academics standards. I don't know if that is exactly literacy, but it gets the content across. I usually stop the video and emphasize this point or that and they usually have some sort of practice sheet to go along with the video. Often the makers of the video provide a short quiz in related materials.
The problem I have with all of these good ideas and strategies is that there are not enough hours in the day to prepare properly and use them. I have done read alouds and have found that they need to be super interesting to hold the class' attention. I still go over textbook structure and probably will for the rest of the school year. I am seeing some independence in the students' answering questions without constant one on one help as they know to use the text structure to help them find the word or answer to a question.

1st Time Blogging

I hope that I am doing this correctly.

My study group had a good meeting the other day. We discussed "read aloud" activities that many of the instructors performed in their classroom. Also, I shared a review game called "Zip It." Basically, a defintion or question is read and another student will read the answer off their card. It takes a little bit of time to create the cards, but it is a quick review. If anyone wants to know more, just e-mail me.

Happy Teaching!!

Midlands Writing Project

Just a quick comment to share that I participated in the Midlands Writing Project in the mid-80's . It is a fabulous project and offers great resources for the classroom teacher-reading and writing resources. I would like to suggest using The Midlands Writing Project link as a possible tool in the classroom. For instance, there is a link to Essays, Stories, and Poems written by Teachers on the left side of the home page. I took the time tonight to select several selections to read. I found the ones that I had selected quite good and thought-provoking. Just thought that these selections could be shared with individual students or even a class; however, here is my question---can these selections be "printed and copied" to share in our classrooms.

The "Blog" concept is quite interesting---and fun, too! My first time "Blogging". As one of the "older" participants in Project Raisse I love adding "first time things" to my career experiences.
pwr

Hello

I hope I am doing this correctly. One thing I am trying is letting 2 students each day read the newspaper and give the 9:35 news in class. It does get them reading for content. Usually, they give headlines, weather, and sports in about 5 minutes. The rest of the students are on computers working on individual work and stop for the 'news'.
I also am teaching my students how to use text features to find information in text books quickly-table of contents, index, glossary, appendices, bolded words and subheadings, etc.

Lessons

Please post any lessons you have done or ideas you have come up with that are RAISSE-ish. There is no point in all of us inventing a wheel if some one else has already come up with something great. Please put great read-alouds, internet sites, or lessons that you think went really well.

Keep coming up with great ideas !

RAISSE at GHS

Hello RAISSE participants. I am blogging. I have enjoyed our discussions in class. I have heard such positive feedback from the participants. The instructors are doing an excellent job. I am looking forward to observing many more teachers using these strategies in their classrooms!
Happy reading!

Welcome to the Study Group!

Hi, Everyone

Welcome to your Study Group for Project RAISSE blog! I have given all of you the permisssion rights to post. Now, I need to see the posts to know that it's working.

Happy Blogging!

Teri